The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is
adventurers, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of light. No grue has ever been seen
by the light of day, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale.

When running a new party, get around the question of plot density by having the first discovery to be a deck of fate, or whatever you call it. If you use a real deck, you should definitely stack it to have the desired outcome, which is to curse the party to attract weird things to happen and involve them. This should not be told to the players at the time, so that they won't just up and try to get themselves 'decursed'. Though quite why they would want to is beyond me.